04. Work together with energy companies and vendors to achieve a more balanced cost-structure.
Considering the capital expenditures of Western and non-Western reactors, we see great differences. Consider for instance, the differences between EPR projects in Finland, France, Great Britain and two units of the same reactor type in China. We believe that this skewed growth can be corrected by multilateral cooperation between the government, energy companies and vendors.
A representative of the CNNC (China National Nuclear Corporation) showed—at the IAEA international conference on climate change and the role of nuclear power in 2019—that China has started to build more efficiently by gaining experience and structuring the nuclear construction industry on efficiency. For example, the work has been divided into civil works, installation, hoisting, and concrete works.17
Above we see a reproduction of Figure 9 from the ETI 'Nuclear Cost Drivers Summary Report'.18 This graph shows a "genre" comparison between similar light water reactors built in Europe & North America (EU&NA) and in the rest of the world (ROW). The right column (DELTA) is our own addition to the graph from the ETI report and it shows the differences between EU&NA and ROW columns. There are significant cost reduction opportunities in the following rubrics: "Financing During Construction", "Owner's Costs”, “Indirect Services Costs" and “Direct Construction Costs: Labor”.
As you can clearly see, there is a lot of headway to be made in all four rubrics. particularly, the government has a role to play in financing the nuclear power plant; in (internationally) harmonizing the licensing framework and by making optimal use of serialized production & manufacturing of components (Indirect Services Costs).
16 http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/165805/
17 http://en.cnnc.com.cn/2019-11/22/c_447346.htm
18 https://www.eti.co.uk/library/the-eti-nuclear-cost-drivers-project-summary-report